


Hogwarts: After the War

by quickquotesquill



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickquotesquill/pseuds/quickquotesquill
Summary: It has been 3 years since the battle of Hogwarts, and 10 since The Boy Who Lived first stepped into the school. Yael Sterling, a plain seeming Jewish girl from London enters a Hogwarts still scarred by the recent war. She quickly befriends Natalie Prewett, a second year from Slytherin with a secret from her family, and Dennis Creevey, now in his seventh year after taking a year off to mourn his brother.Just as the final repairs are completed, the portraits and ghosts begin to whisper about ancient dangers. The bodies of unicorns are found in the Forbidden Forrest. And Yael and her friends can't shake the strange feeling that they are being watched by someone or something - waiting for the right time to strike.





	Hogwarts: After the War

It was something of an absurdist masterpiece. It was around 3 pm on a hot and muggy July Tuesday when an actual live owl, carrying a letter — sealed with a circle of red wax, no less — flew into my window and perched on the wooden post of my small bed. It cocked its head to the side expectantly, as if what was truly out of the ordinary was my failure to promptly accept the intrusion and the letter. I didn't want it to bite me, if that's what owls do, so I slowly and silently pulled out my phone and texted Ima: “there's a bird in my room.” She came up the stairs, opened the door to my room, and shooed the owl out with a broom. It left the letter behind on my bed.

My mother gave me a funny look. "What was this bird doing here, Yael?" She asked.

I shook my head in disbelief. "Um. I dunno. It had this letter?" I picked it up. "And it's … addressed to me?"

"What?" she asked.

"Yeah." I frowned and read out the calligraphed writing on the front. "'Ms. Y. Sterling, The Upstairs Bedroom, 10 Camden Road, Sutton, City of London.' Wow, that's oddly specific."

"Why was your window open?"

"Ima, I didn't expect a nocturnal bird to deliver me a letter from..."

I turned the envelope over. The wax seal was imprinted with an "H," and some kind of strange looking medieval crest. There was no return address.

"Do you think it's from the Renaissance Fair?" I asked. She shrugged. We had all gone to the Renaissance Fair a few weeks ago to celebrate the end of school. Because we miss a lot of school during the High Holidays at the beginning of the year, my school doesn't get out until the end of June. It's okay though, because my birthday is at the end of June - June 27th - and if I went to a regular school, on top of having to miss for every Jewish holiday, I wouldn't get to celebrate my birthday during the school year.

I opened the letter.

"Dear Ms. Sterling," I read aloud, "we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." I looked up from the letter. "Ima, are you and Abba sending me off to the Circus to become a Magician? I know I'm hard to deal with, but you guys signed the adoption papers when I was two; you can't just send me back."

My mom laughed. "Motek, if we had wanted to get rid of you, we would have done it a long time ago. You're stuck with your Ima and Abba, like it or not."

When I people learn that I was adopted, they sometimes think it must be a really taboo subject in my family. They sometimes ask "when did you find out?" as if my mom sat me down one day confessed that she hadn't given birth to me and that everything I thought I knew was a lie. That's not what it was like for me at all. I usually respond by asking "when did you find out you weren't adopted?" because I knew all along that my Ima and Abba didn't give birth to me, and it never mattered. When I was little, my Ima used to joke that I was picky about getting the best possible parents, so that was why they had to fill out an application before she could be my Ima.

"Anyways," Ima said, "I don't know this 'Hogwarts'. I have never heard of it. It sounds like a joke. Who's the Headmaster?"

I looked at the letterhead. "Headmistress, actually. Minerva McGonagall, D. Mag, Order of Merlin, first class. And the Deputy Headmaster is named Filius Flitwick, he's the one that the letter's actually from. And it says that they..." I put my fingers in the air for fake quotes, "await my owl by no later than July 31st."

Before I could say anything else, there was a knock on the door. My mother turned her head towards Abba's studio "Baruch, can you get that?"

I suddenly felt a strange rush through my whole body, as if an electric spark were jumping from the back of my neck through my chest and spreading all over. I don't know why, but the sound suddenly made me feel shocked and afraid and alive, and I ran down the stairs and I knew it was for me. I made it downstairs just as Abba was opening the door.

At the door stood a thin woman, pale with wild black curls and long fingers adorned with many rings of different sizes and shapes. She wore a dark purple cloak and a matching hat of a tall cone with a wide brim, decorated with small stars and astronomical symbols.

She reached into her sleeve and took out a piece of parchment. "I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion." She stated. "Is this the residence of Ms. Yael Sterling?"

"That's me!" I said, and I walked to the door. The woman shook my hand.

"My name is Professor Aurora Sinistra. I'm here from Hogwarts. I believe you received our letter. Normally, these are hand-delivered in the case where a student comes from a muggle family, but I think the quill was confused because one or both of your birth parents must have been a witch or wizard."

Abba stared blankly at at the woman. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. Hogwarts? Muggle? Quill? My English is not the best. I don't know what you mean."

Professor Sinistra raised her eyebrows. "Oh, of course you wouldn't know what I'm saying! You wouldn't have heard of Hogwarts or any of that. Mr. Sterling, I am here to tell you that your daughter is incredibly special. She has great talents that she doesn't even know about yet."

She leaned down slightly and looked me in the eye. "You're a witch, Yael."

 

* * *

 

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before my mother, coming down the stairs, interrupted the woman in the heliotrope cloak.

"She's a what?" she asked. "Did you just call my daughter a witch?" Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Like with the broomsticks , and the hexes, and the warts?"

The woman smiled. "Well, witches and wizards aren't exactly like in your books." She leaned down again to face me. "You're like me," she said serenely. "You have magic in you. With the proper education, you could even be a sorceress or an alchemist, or..."

"I'm sorry," said my father, interrupting her. "But we're not interested in buying your magic book or amulet, or whatever."

Professor Sinestra laughed. "Oh, you think I'm trying to sell you something! No, no, no! This isn't a scam. I'm actually a witch." She pulled a stick out from the folds of her robes, and pointed the tip at our fireplace. "Please forgive the intrusion, I promise I'm not about to break anything. Incendio! "

A pulse of red light shot from her wand, through the glass screen, and struck the fake plastic logs, where a fire started to crackle merrily. The smoke rose for about a foot, before meeting the boarded-up chimney, and started to pour into the living room. Within a few seconds, the fire-alarm's shrill beeping started to fill the room.

"Shit!" Ima said, running over to the fireplace.

"Put it out!" I said to Professor Sinestra. She pointed her wand at the fireplace again and muttered " Aguamenti ," and stream of water somehow flew from the tip of her wand. It struck the fire, and even more smoke poured out as the fire was quenched. It smelled like burning plastic.

My mom and dad were both running around now, trying to fan the smoke away from the smoke detector. Professor Sinestra leaned down to me.

"Why are your parents waving their newspapers at the ceiling?" She asked. "And where's that noise coming from?"

"It's the smoke detector." I said impatiently. "Look, you did this. Can you at least come inside and clear out the smoke?"

She hesitated. "I'm not authorized to do magic in front of muggles after the demonstration."

"What?"

"I'm not supposed to do magic in front of them. The less they know, the better."

I took a breath. The smoke alarm was starting to give me a headache. "I don't believe you then." I said, putting my hands on my hips. "I don't believe you're a real witch unless you can clear the smoke."

She smiled. "Fine." She pointed her wand at the ceiling. " Ventus Fumos. "

I watched her wand carefully this time, trying to understand how a solid piece of knotted wood could produce fire, water, air - and who knows what else. There didn't seem to be a hole in the wand where the wind blew from, the wind just seemed to get its power from an energy that flowed through the wand from the old woman's body. After a few moments, when the smoke was gone and the wand had been returned to the old woman's robes, we all decided to sit in the living room and discuss the fact that apparently witchcraft was a real thing, and it was something I could do. To be honest, it was actually kind of bad-ass. I totally felt like one of the Mutants from X-Men.

"I just don't believe it," Ima said, as we sat on the couch with a professor from a magical academy, sipping tea. "How could our daughter be a witch? She's always been so normal!"

Abba nodded. “Was it something we did? We tried to have a normal house.”

“Most of the time, wizards and witches come from magical families, but every year, there are one or two that come from muggle (non-magical) families.” said Sinestra. “We don’t really know why this happens. In your daughter’s case, however, we believe that one or both of her birth parents was a wizard or witch.”

“How are you sure I’m a witch?” I asked. “Can I try to use your wand? What will happen?”

Sinestra smiled. “You’ll get one of your own soon enough. Let me ask you a question, Yael. Have you ever noticed anything strange happen when you were scared or upset?”

A memory comes rushing back to me. It's a sunny day in June, three weeks ago, and I'm coming into school carrying doughnuts. Daniel, the cutest boy in the grade, gapes at them as I enter. "Oh my God Yael, is it your birthday?" He asks, smiling.

I blush. "Was it the doughnuts that gave it away?" He looks sheepish, and says, "Well, if you're just giving them out…" I let him trail off as I hand him one. In his defence, that was the point of bringing them to school. I don't take one; I've been feeling kind of ache-y in my stomach recently and I don't think the doughnuts don’t look like they would help that at all.

He smiles. “Thanks Yael,” he says. “you’re the best. Seriously,” and runs back to his seat, holding the doughnut as a prize. As he sits down triumphantly, the rest of the class starts to turn their attention towards me and my sweets.

Luckily, the teacher walks in before any riot can break out. She sees the doughnuts too. “Yael!” she says in a cheerful voice. “Happy birthday! Let’s all sing Happy Birthday and give out the doughnuts so we aren't staring at them all class!"

My classmates are happy to oblige, and sing out in a loud and discordant song.

"Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Ya - el,

Happy Birthday to you!"

As the song goes on, I start feeling wet down there .

Oh God. I think. Oh God, it’s happening. I think I’m bleeding. I am bleeding in the middle of the classroom. Oh God, my underwear is going to be ruined … I need to get to a bathroom ... I need to get home ... do I need to go to the nurse? What do I -

Suddenly, my crises is interrupted by the last person I would ever want to see when I am freaking out and afraid that I'm about to start bleeding through my jeans.

Daniel, the aforementioned cutie, comes over. "Can I have another doughnut?" He asks.

I should respond normally. I should say something casual, like: "Yeah, go ahead." But instead, I look at him like a deer in headlights for a few seconds, and then everything goes black.

“Then I was in my mom’s bathroom.” I said. “I have no idea how I got there; I just was. At the time, I thought I must have run home and forgotten about it, but maybe it was actually magic?”

The woman frowned. “Accidental apparition isn’t an incredibly common as a juvenile outburst, but it’s not unheard of. Pay attention to your feelings, Yael. You may start to notice magical outbursts such as these becoming more frequent and more powerful as you begin your magical training. You will learn to control these feelings, and to harness them for incredibly powerful effects.”

I nodded, swallowing. More powerful than disappearing from one place and appearing somewhere else across the whole city?

The woman was still talking. “Pay attention to when they happen as well, as they are often linked to your horoscope. This was close to your birthday?” She asked. “That makes sense. If the stars were lined up correctly …” She looked up, suddenly remembering something.

“Before I forget, there’s one more thing we have to do,” She said, producing two large scrolls of parchment from a bag that was much too small to have possibly contained them. She rolled them out on the coffee table and produced, out of the same bag, two silver-tipped eagle feather quills and a small jar of black ink.

“What are these?” Abba asked. “Is this for the school?”

“Not exactly,” said professor Sinestra. “They are, in muggle terminology, non-disclosure agreements. The International Statute of Secrecy requires that all members of muggle families with a wizard or witch must sign these. They’re also commonly attached to wedding certificates when a witch or wizard marries a muggle. All they say is that you understand that you may not divulge any information about magic or the magical world to anyone you know.”

“Wait,” I interrupt, “Anyone? What about my best friend? Can’t I tell her where I’m going to school? What I’m doing?”

Professor Sinestra shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately no. You may not. The rules are the same for you as for all of us. If you tell your friend anything, the Ministry will have to wipe your friend’s memory in order to comply with the ISS. It’s not nice, but it’s the law.”

She turned to Abba and Ima. “This part here just affirms that you understand that you may come into contact with magical objects such as wands, potions, or amulets, or magical literature such as spellbooks or magical texts. It is incredibly important that you do not touch these yourself or let other muggles see them. We are giving you the privilege of letting you know what you do. If you break the statute, your memories will be wiped and you will wake up working at a tourist resort in Wales.”

She turned to me. “Yael, you will start learning how to do magic soon, and it is important to know that you can’t do magic in front of muggles — even your parents.”

She stood up. “I’ll let you talk among yourselves, I’m sure you have many affairs to get in order.” She then handed us another envelope. “Enclosed is a map, directions to the pub, and instructions to get into the alley. A shopping list was included with your original letter, and if I remember correctly the exchange rate between Muggle money and ours, you should bring… more than you’d think you would need. Best of luck to you all. And Yael, I’ll see you at Hogwarts!” She walked out the door, took two steps, and then twirled around, disappearing in the process.


End file.
